


Pointilism

by 6romide



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Manipulative Albus Dumbledore, Manipulative Severus Snape, Oneshot, Romance, ambiguous Snape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 18:06:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29282718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/6romide/pseuds/6romide
Summary: Harry doesn’t see the pattern until it’s too late, of course. Each precise movement planned from the very moment of his birth, moments threading together to make the symphony that now plays—a funeral procession.Every despicable action, every disingenuous word, every nuanced gesture…every venomous insult hissed between clenched teeth accompanied by clenched fists was a fateful nudge to position him just where he needed to be for this very instant to pass, seen in a seer’s crystal orb years ago.“You’ve lied to me,” the boy breathes, watching Severus with half-lidded eyes.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Severus Snape
Comments: 18
Kudos: 104





	Pointilism

**Author's Note:**

> Pointilism is a painting technique where small dots of color form an image.

Pointillism

Harry doesn’t see the pattern until it’s too late, of course. Each precise movement planned from the very moment of his birth, moments threading together to make the symphony that now plays—a funeral procession.

Every despicable action, every disingenuous word, every nuanced gesture…every venomous insult hissed between clenched teeth accompanied by clenched fists was a fateful nudge to position him just where he needed to be for this very instant to pass, seen in a seer’s crystal orb years ago.

“You’ve lied to me,” the boy breathes, watching Severus with half-lidded eyes. Severus tries not to stare at the blood on the dungeon floor, at the slight tremble in the boy’s limbs as he raises a hand as if to touch Severus’ robes. “You’ve always acted like you hated me, but—but in reality…”

“Silence!” he hisses, forcing the words out in a single inaudible breath. He thinks if he hears anymore he might crack, splitting apart at the seams like pottery dropped from a great height. He certainly feels shattered, what with the hope of the wizarding world desperately clinging to him for _safety_ of all things. _Gutted_ in fact as he thinks of what Albus has made him do – what Albus has made them all do.

Severus turns his back to him, his heavy black robes brushing up against Harry’s pale, naked thighs.

The Dark Lord’s dark magic thrums in the air, reaching them before he does—materializing outside the cage Severus and Harry are currently in, a grim smile on his lipless face.

“Lucius told me I might find you here,” Voldemort hisses. His red eyes are bloodshot with madness and they glint eerily in the torchlight. “Come Severus, there will be time to play with our _guest_ later…”

Harry keeps his eyes carefully averted, having learned at least one thing from those deliberately disastrous Occlumency lessons. His breathing is harsh and unsteady. Perhaps tonight he will die and perhaps it will be quick…if Severus was being truthful about his intentions. Maybe, it will even be a relief rather than a torture.

“Of course, my Lord. I was simply wanting to see how far the Chosen One had fallen. Quite disappointing, really. I had expected more _fight_ from Potter.”

Severus gives him a disgusted look, the haughtiness is in stark contrast to the concern shown just moments ago. It has Harry wondering which Severus is real and which is fake, whether his life really is an elaborate lie or so many mirrors reflecting into each other that it wouldn’t make sense trying to work it all out now –not now at the very end. Voldemort laughs and fixes Harry with a hungry stare.

“Oh, I believe _Harry_ has fight in him left yet.”

The Dark Lords leaves in a cloud of black smoke and Severus watches him leave, breathing a sigh of relief when the clawing, insidious magic recedes. It is so confusing, so hard to focus, so difficult to trust…Harry feels like he might burst from the intensity of it.

“You must trust me,” Severus says finally. His dark eyes gleam like obsidian as they bore into Harry’s own. Harry can feel himself shaking again as he leans on the iron bars. He is naked and wretched and he lets each word fall over him like a waterfall. “Whatever happens, you must _survive_. Whether you _live_ afterwards is up to you.”

“Afterwards…” Harry echoes. He thinks of Sirius falling through the veil, like slipping deeper into molasses, the stillness of the motion making the transition into death all the more haunting.

“There are portkeys,” Severus continues, whispering. He tugs on Harry’s arm until Harry’s wrapped in the warm cloak for just a moment, snapping him back to reality and away from…the edge. “I have turned each mask into a portkey that will only be activated by the password, _Hagrid_ , thought or spoken. Death Eaters tend to disrobe and take off their masks for these _festivities_. It shouldn’t be hard with your Seeker reflexes to catch one. The portkeys are connected in a system, so that when one activates, the spell will break on the rest. No one will be able to follow you.”

“And you, sir?” Harry’s lips barely move as they form the question. He’s beginning to see the fuzzy edges of the figures in the middle of the puzzle. The grand scheme of things brought about by dots and data points and _pawns_. “Are you coming too?”

 _Naïve, foolhardy, idiotic…too trusting by far_. Not moments ago, Harry had barred his teeth and growled, _“Come to have a turn too, Professor?”_ _Broken, used, expired…_

There is momentum in this scheme now. Too many precise movements, chess pieces directed across the board by the grand Albus Dumbledore. Where is that twinkling-eyed dictator now? Sipping on hot tea and sucking on a lemon drop until his insides rot from the sweetness, while Harry is slowly prepared for a painful death that Albus had planned well before the Sorting Hat ever screamed _GRYFFINDOR!_

Severus knows them all by heart, and what he hadn’t known, he’d clawed from people’s minds until he did. Each coordinate, each half-smile, each side-long glance—this scheme, this web cannot contain _his_ survival. For this to work, one of them has to die— and Severus will be damned if it’s Harry.

“Of course,” Severus lies and knows Harry knows he’s lying. “I won’t be but a minute behind you. Like your own shadow.” He presses a kiss to Harry’s forehead and hates himself for it.

Harry’s starting to see the picture now, how the carefully laid points of color don’t make much sense up close, but from afar make a tapestry more rich and more tragic than anything he could have believed. Why, it must have stretched for years and years…how carefully and completely it had ensconced Severus Snape, swallowed Lily and James Potter, sacrificed Sirius Black…He gasps when he sees his own story come into stunning clarity, how Severus’ own destiny was entwined around his like a worshiping moon about a planet. And Dumbledore, with his puppet master tendencies, sinking into the time space like a black hole, pulling Grindelwald and Voldemort…and _Harry_ into his orbit and sucking them _in_.

It’s too late, of course.

*

When Harry is led to the throne room in chains, he can’t help feeling the magic crackling in the air, weighing it, as if it would be of any use to him now. Voldemort leans back in his throne with Nagini wrapped around him. “ _Begin…”_

Harry isn’t sure who goes first, who throws the first spell or tears the first scream from his throat. All he knows is that he has a choice to make: to live or die, and that his choice will be Severus’ choice as well, like two entangled subatomic particles. If he dares to make a grab for any of the masks swimming in his vision, he wonders what will meet him on the other side. If Albus will stick a wand into his scarred face and _Avada Kedavra_ him on the spot, or if news of Severus’ death will reach him in a short and stale obituary published in _The Daily Prophet_.

He still doesn’t know what to make of everything, of the revelations and the feelings—but his fingers have brushed across several masks so far, and he very pointedly did _not_ think of Hagrid. He coughs up blood in between short lungfuls of air in between screams…it’s worse than drowning, worse than when he dove into the Great Lake and the gillyweed had run out of his system…

He tunes out the taunts and jeers, the insults, the laughter…his vision blinks in and out and he’s been renervated twice at least. Still, it isn’t until a familiar aura settles around him that he’s snapped back to the present, to his dilemma. It had seemed simpler to not make the choice at all—to endure until his body gave out, whether in death or in a lifelong stay in the Janus Thickey Ward. His inaction must have spurred Severus to move him along, or else, maybe it was his turn in line.

 _"_ _Crucio!”_

Harry shouldn’t be surprised when he hears it—but he feels betrayed all the same. He writhes on the ground, in a pool of his own blood and shame. The Death Eaters laugh and he can _hear_ it now. As the curse lifts, he rolls onto his stomach, curling in on himself.

“Thought he’d put up more of a fight!”

“Not so tough, is he?”

“At least his parents _fought_.”

He stares up at Severus, fresh blood adding to that already caked on his face. Severus straddles him, plants one foot on either side of his body and leans down close. Unlike the other Death Eaters, Severus still wears his mask. He’s inches from Harry’s face now, that porcelain shield handed to him on a silver platter.

 _“Well, Potter?”_ Severus sneers, yanking Harry’s arm away from his body and up, close enough that Harry just needs to _point_ and grab the portkey. Yank it right off and—

Harry blinks up at him, dazed. There’s no need to remove the mask, is there? Perhaps Severus had not thought of it—or perhaps he had, just another contingency, another concentric circle of lies and plots and schemes.

Harry uses the last of his strength to grab Severus’ arm with one hand and touch the mask in the other.

“HAGRID!” Harry shouts, leaving the torture and the pain behind in a swirl of vivid sound—of Voldemort screeching horribly and Death Eaters panicking.

*

They land in Grimmauld place, bloody, right there in the living room in the middle of an Order meeting. Everyone is teary eyed, passing around tissues as Albus tells them the news of Harry’s untimely death at the hands of Death Eaters. They believe him. Of course they do. Molly and Arthur are beside themselves and Minerva and Flitwick and Pomona and Poppy are not much better. Remus has his head bowed, and a renewed conviction to bring down Greyback through any means necessary lights in his gut the way Albus hoped it would.

Everyone stands up at the sudden crack and burst of magic in the living room. Kingsley rushes out first, wand in hand, and freezes at the sight before him as the rest crowd around the scene.

Harry is holding Severus’ mask in his hand, revealing Severus’ completely gobsmacked face. Harry’s naked and bloody and trembling, and very much alive.

Kingsley throws Albus a scorching look and he’s not alone. Minerva’s wand out is out and aimed at Albus. Remus growls low in his throat. The betrayal is palpable. Albus insisted that a rescue mission was not possible. No aid was sent, no search team. Severus was supposed to be out of the country too—unavailable to infiltrate Voldemort’s ranks this particular weekend. A terrible thought races through everyone’s minds as they watch Harry crumple to the ground, Severus dropping beside him, pulling him into a tight embrace.

Had Albus _wanted_ Harry to perish?

Molly raises a hand to her mouth, a sob exploding into the stillness of the room.

“You foolish boy,” Severus murmurs, still staring at Harry like he is made of stardust. It was never supposed to be both of them. There was no way they could both live—too much had been written and planned and executed. “You should have left me.”

“You said…my shadow,” Harry whispers, letting his head rest on Severus’ shoulder. The fact he is naked doesn’t bother him as much as it should, considering he had just escaped a rather narrow death. Even so, Tonks conjures a robe and offers it to Harry who slips it on carefully. “You lied.”

“Ah, Harry, my boy, I am so pleased—“ Albus begins, but is silenced with a flick of Minerva’s wand.

“I don’t want to hear it, Albus!” Minerva screams. “You told us he was _dead!_ ”

Harry seems to suddenly realize that Dumbledore is in the room and he glares at him—gripping Severus’ arm so hard his knuckles turn bone white.

“You think you’ve got us locked in, don’t you?” Harry accuses, his voice a low hiss. “You think that just because you’ve _plotted_ everyone’s death with such stunning accuracy that we’ll just roll over and _die_ on command, don’t you? Well, I’m not blind anymore, Headmaster. I _see_ the world as you’d _like_ it to be and I _refuse_.”

Besides Harry who is brilliant as he launches into his tirade is Severus, hand on Harry’s shoulder, smirking at the Light Lord.

And that’s when Dumbledore sees the picture, the _picture which devours his picture_ , the little points and seeds that Severus has sown over the years. He opens his mouth to shout, but Minerva’s silencing spell is strong with her rage and conviction. He wants to tell them all that he’s not the _real_ monster, that Severus, the slimy Slytherin snake, is the real threat.

Severus, who has maneuvered Dumbledore down from his position of power, who has manipulated Harry Potter into believing he has _saved him_ , who has secured his position as Harry’s lover - if the hand on the small of Harry’s back is anything to go by. Severus, whose gleaming charcoal eyes are full of dancing, laughing fire.

Severus tugs Harry more closely against him, brushing a kiss to his forehead again and is rewarded when Harry leans into him, pressing up onto his toes. No one dares to protest, not when Severus is the one who so _artfully_ salvaged Potter from the grave. Albus looks away bitterly. Defeat tastes vile on his tongue and he wonders how he could have missed it. He was so diligent in crafting his plans, in making sure everything would run smoothly.

He had looked at his painting close up at all the clusters of colored points and far away to see the image. Perhaps, he should have paid more attention to Severus, should have taken a few more steps back and tried to see how all the smaller dots he had begun to notice appearing around his larger dots, especially the Harry dots, blended with his picture, _adapting_ it.

“Oh Severus, how could we ever have doubted you?” Molly sobs, taking his hands which had tortured Potter seconds ago and squeezing them.

“Severus, we all owe you a great deal,” Remus says however haltingly, “I will never forgive myself for believing _that liar_.”

The Order usher the two into the kitchen, go to work preparing the tea and biscuits and spelling their clothes clean and dry. Harry snuggles closely into Severus’ side, feeling altogether overwhelmed and needing the safety. From the corner, with Kingsley and Flitwick’s wands on him, Dumbledore continues to glare.

“Thank you,” Harry says to Severus. “For finally telling me the truth, for opening my eyes.”

Dumbledore wants to stomp his foot and throw his hands in the air in frustration.

Severus rubs slow soothing circles on Harry’s back. “Sometimes it can be hard to see the greater scheme of things when you’re in the thick of it.”

Dumbledore’s snort goes unheard.

“But when you do see the pattern, that’s when you can _change it_ ,” Severus whispers in a low seductive murmur, his warm breath ghosting over the shell of Harry’s ear and making him blush, even as he directs a quick, sinister gaze in the headmaster’s direction.

“Can you really?” Harry asks softly when he finds his voice, dipping his chocolate covered biscuit into the fragrant tea, the smell of lavender floating up to him.

Severus hums low in his throat and Harry can feel the rumbling, so close is he to Severus that every pulse of the man’s heart feels like Harry’s own.

Dumbledore needn’t have bothered with all the theatrics, his pathetic warning noises and waving arms and stomping feet before he’s petrified. Because Harry sees Snape’s artwork as clear as the blue sky above the quidditch pitch and it’s _beautiful_ and _terrible_ and _cruel_. He sees his future stretching out before him with Severus Snape rising in society attached to Harry Potter’s arm, leading him around on a metaphorical leash as it were.

He sees himself and Severus sharing a home and a life and nothing more- no meaningful love.

But that’s easily remedied, Harry thinks to himself as he leans more fully against Severus, inhaling his scent - because he’s seen Severus’ heart in the moments when the man’s mask is down and it’s fragile and shattered and prone to flight. It just needs a little coaxing and love, that’s all.

Yes, a bit of color.

Harry plots his own points, the image shifting and solidifying, to the night when Severus confesses his love for the first time, when they are bonded in the Burrow’s backyard, when they buy their first cottage on the edge of Hogsmeade and have their own garden, and sell vegetables and potions ingredients at the local farmer’s market.

Severus is already head over heels in love with Harry by the time he invites Harry to his bed for the first time. It’s the eve of Voldemort’s death and he takes Harry on luxurious sheets in a warm room, not on a floor in a grimy cell. He thinks _I love you I love you I love you_ as he clutches Harry’s back desperately in a post-orgasmic haze, terrified that Harry might not come back from battle tomorrow.

Harry smiles back, coloring another dot on his tapestry labeled _the first time we made love_.

*

Severus doesn’t see the pattern until it’s too late, of course.

But by then, he’s wearing a Weasley jumper with a giant serpentine ‘S’ in aquamarine, and sitting in the stands to watch the Chudley Cannons with Harry and Hermione and Ron, and baking pumpernickel bread for Molly Weasley’s family brunches.

By the time he realizes his entire plan has gone off the rails and into the Forbidden Forest, or belly up beside the Giant Squid, Severus is expanding his chambers in the dungeons, and buying furniture together, and shagging Harry Potter on every available surface in their new cottage.

And of course, by the time he sees the entire image, he can only stare in awe at its intricacy and admire his young husband all the more. He ignores the odd dots of color left by Dumbledore, now just an odd corner that doesn’t make much sense. He notices the way his own dots have fizzled out over the years, replaced by the vibrant and vivacious hues of Harry’s own. His heart swells with pride and adoration and _love_.

He thinks of this as he watches the colors explode over the Great Lake from the fireworks, courtesy of Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes. He pulls Harry into his lap on the picnic blanket, nuzzling his face into Harry’s hair and neck. It’s the anniversary of the Final Battle and Hagrid is out in the middle of the lake on a boat, directing projectiles of light up into the air with his umbrella.

“I love you,” Severus says, remembering the way he thought those words over and over like a mantra on the day of the Battle. He remembers the way Harry ended the war with a disarming charm, how he sagged in Severus’ arms afterwards, who was always close behind him like a shadow.

“I love you too,” Harry smiles, just as Hagrid sends a giant red heart to explode overhead.

_Fin._


End file.
